How a Broadcaster Influenced American Propaganda

[Pages:18]Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

How a Broadcaster Influenced American Propaganda

- Or, how Edward R. Murrow told America's story to the world.

American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must believable; to be believable we must credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.

Edward R. Murrow, May 1963 Page 1 of 18

Table of Contents

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

Introduction

3

Theory and Method

4

USIA: 1953-1999

7

Murrow: Broadcaster and USIA Director

10

USIA in the early 1960s

11

Analysis: "Warts and All"

12

Discussion

15

Conclusion

16

Bibliography

17

Websites

18

List of Illustrations

18

This paper consists of 26.391 characters with spaces excluding front page and list of contents. Page 2 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

Introduction

After World War II, The United States of America sought to win the hearts and minds of the people abroad by telling America's story to them1. One of the main players in this game was the United States Information Agency (USIA) which since its birth in 1953 and during the Cold War used both modern technology and old fashioned diplomacy to reach the populations in, what the radio channel Voice of America called, the "prisoner countries"2.

The world was reduced to a global village by almost immediate knowledge of events ? and also reactions to those events ? through new technology. The introduction of television and the general acceleration of communication in the 1960s gave the people of the world front row seats at international events. These new developments became important tools of public diplomacy, or as it was termed in the beginning of the 1960s, "propaganda"3. It was in this kind of media landscape that USIA played up against Kremlin's propaganda.

In my presentation at the "Coming Together or Coming Apart" summer school at the Freie Universit?t in Berlin, one of my main arguments was that the personalities of the Presidents of United States and the personalities of the leaders of United States Information Agency (USIA) influenced the public diplomacy, or propaganda. I would like to elaborate on that argument in this paper.

Edward R. Murrow was already a famous broadcaster, when John F. Kennedy asked him to become his USIA Director in 1961. During World War II, he broadcasted from London, and in his TV show "See It Now", he had opposed Senator McCarthy and won. Today, American Embassies all over the world have grants in his name sending promising young journalists to be educated in the United States. The term "public diplomacy" was coined by the Dean at Tuft

1 Inspired by USIA's motto from 1953-1999: "Telling America's Story to the World". 2 "Policy Guidances", in Broadcasting Freedom ? the Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, Arch

Puddington, 314-321, (Kentucky: The University Press, 2000) 3 John W. Henderson, United States Information Agency, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1969), vii

Page 3 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

University's Fletcher School4, and the Center for Public Diplomacy is named after Edward R. Murrow. All of this suggests that he had big influence during his three years as USIA Director.

Due to the brevity of the paper, I have chosen to focus on the early 1960s and the USIA Director acting at the time, and thus my research question is:

How did the personality of USIA Director Edward R. Murrow influence the public diplomacy of the U.S. in the early 1960s?

Theory and Method

The importance of the term or concept of public diplomacy in this paper requires a brief definition, so before going into how the personalities of President John F. Kennedy and USIA Director Edward R. Murrow influenced the American public diplomacy, or propaganda, in the early 1960s, it is important to understand what public diplomacy and propaganda really is, and if there is a difference between the two terms.

In international relations, public diplomacy is the communication with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influence. There is no one definition of Public Diplomacy, and it may be easier described than easily defined as definitions have changed and continue to change over time. It is practiced through a variety of instruments and methods ranging from personal contact and media interviews to the internet and educational exchanges. There is still debate on whether Public Diplomacy is propaganda or not.

The word "propaganda" derives from the 17th century Roman Catholic Commission of Cardinals which was set up by the pope for the propagation of the Catholic faith, but in the 20th century, the word or term has come to have pejorative associations such as lies, deceit and brainwashing.

4 A graduate school of international affairs

Page 4 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

Propaganda can be defined as a kind of targeted communication with an objective that has been established a priori. It is a deliberate attempt to influence public opinion through the transmission of ideas and values for a specific purpose, but not through violence or bribery. Propaganda is produced to persuade its subject that there is only one valid point of view5.

To many people, and also to the USIA, propaganda is the preserve of "regimes" ? and not something associated with democracies. This is why agencies like the USIA and Voice of America (VOA) wished to avoid the negative connotations of the term "propaganda". Instead, the term "public diplomacy" came in play in the United States in 1965. Public diplomacy is in some ways propaganda6.

The United States Information Agency (USIA) was established to streamline the U.S. government's overseas information programs, and make them more effective. The United States Information Agency was the largest full-service public relations organization in the world, spending over $2 billion per year and with bases in over 150 countries, to highlight America's world view, and bring into question the Soviet ideology. In 1948, the Smith-Mundt Act banned domestic distribution of propaganda intended for foreign audiences, but before 1972, the U.S. government was allowed to distribute expressly domestic propaganda through Congress, independent media (such as Radio Free Europe (in Eastern Europe) and Radio Liberty (in the former Soviet Union)), and schools.

In short, public diplomacy is a way of reaching out directly to foreign audiences rather than to foreign governments. Somehow, the term public diplomacy seems to be easier to accept for Americans than the term propaganda. In 1968, Professor in Political Science, Robert E. Elder, wrote in his book "The Information Machine ? The United States Information Agency and American Foreign Policy":

5 Nicholas J. Cull, David Culbert, and David Welch, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion ? Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present, (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2003), 317-323

6 Cull, Culbert, and Welch, Propaganda, 327

Page 5 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

"Americans distrust propaganda ? especially government propaganda ? yet they have allowed their government to fashion a powerful propaganda machine. This machine, which costs taxpayers $170 million a year, is designed to convince people in the rest of the world that United States policies and actions are helpful to them, or at least not harmful to their basic interests."7

His statement described the general feeling in the United States; propaganda is bad. Because of the restrictions of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, the USIA was never able to conduct propaganda within the U.S. or even to show the films it made without an act of Congress; hence the USIA's work was not known to most of the American people. The term "propaganda" was in most cases not used officially by the USIA; only in internal letters and memos8. When the term "public diplomacy" was introduced in the U.S. in 1965, it was, in a way, a perfect piece of propaganda about propaganda because it gave the USIA a new phrase it could build new meanings around. Furthermore, by using the word "diplomacy" instead of, for instance, "public relations" it also gave the workers at SUIA a sense of working on the same level as diplomats hired by Department of State.

To explain what public diplomacy was in the 1960s (and to some extend still is today), I will provide some examples: It is Public Diplomacy when political and cultural leaders and journalists go on a trip to the United States paid by the U.S. Government under the educational exchange programs. It was Public Diplomacy when Voice of America, the radio service of USIA, carried Neil Armstrong's words to millions when U.S. Astronauts landed on the moon for the first time. It is Public Diplomacy when a U.S. performing artist is on a foreign tour sponsored by the U.S. Government, and when U.S. diplomats in the cities, the artist visits, publicize the tour and make arrangements for his performances.

It is not public diplomacy, however, when all of us today are"friends" with Monica and Chandler from

7 Robert E. Elder, The Information Machine ? The United States Information Agency, (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1968), vii

8 According to Professor Ewa Hauser, Freie Universit?t, September 21, 2011

Page 6 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

the American series "Friends". This is more a kind of cultural imperialism, but that is a quite different discussion. These two series are not public diplomacy because they are made by private distributers. It would have been Public Diplomacy, though, if the State Department of the United States had been involved in the distribution in some way. Back in the 1960s, this approach was not that strange to the USIA. The agency ? along with Hollywood producers ? made several movies and documentaries which were showed overseas.

U.S. Security interests require that people around the world should not be hostile towards the United States and Americans. That is why the U.S. tries to define itself through deeds and words in ways that build global friendships ? and if that is not possible; it tries to at least diminish hostility ? to limit the intensity of anti-Americanism9.

In terms of choice of words, I will use both "propaganda" and "public diplomacy" throughout the paper. The term "public diplomacy" was not used by the USIA until 1965, the year after Edward R. Murrow left the USIA, and so this paper will mostly address the work done by the USIA after 1965 as public diplomacy and the work before as propaganda. To many scholars10, the two words mean the same, and when "propaganda" is used in this paper it is meant in the most neutral way.

Before analyzing what kind of influence President John F. Kennedy's USIA Director, Edward R. Murrow had on American public diplomacy; I will provide a short background on the USIA and Murrow.

USIA: 1953 - 1999

The United States Information Agency was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August 1953, and it operated as a public diplomacy agency until it was absorbed into the Department of State in 1999. When Eisenhower took office, he wanted to wage the cold war. As

9 Philip Seib, ed., Toward a New Public Diplomacy ? Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), vii

10 Nicholas J. Cull, for instance, argues in the book Propaganda and Mass Persuasion ? Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present that propaganda is not immoral.

Page 7 of 18

Kathrine Simonsen ? University of Southern Denmark Coming Together or Coming Apart Professor Ewa Hauser

a soldier he had learned the value of the psychological dimension of power on the battlefields, he called it the "P-factor"11. He thought that the information from the United States needed to come from an independent agency and thus created the United States Information Agency in 1953. USIA quoted him for saying:

"It is not enough for us to have sound policies, dedicated to the goals of universal peace, freedom and progress. These policies must be made known to and understood by all peoples throughout the world"12.

But the creation of USIA in 1953 was not the United States' first attempt at using propaganda to persuade the public.

During World War I, the Committee on Public Information used writers, speakers, dramatists, movie makers, publishers and men working with advertising to help tell the American story at home and abroad. The committee distributed more than 75 million copies of publications mostly to Americans but also abroad13.

In the 1920s, the notion that foreign propaganda had tricked the U.S. into entering the world war was spreading and the term got the earlier mentioned connotations of deceit. The State Department continued to make information available to its overseas officers to distribute to the foreign press, but there was no systematic information program in the U.S. between the two world wars14.

U.S. propaganda during World War II can be divided into two stages. The first period from September 1939 to December 1941 was characterized by neutrality and the second period during

11 Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 81

12 USIA 1st Review of Operations, August-December 1953, as quoted in Cull. The Cold War, 81 13 John W. Henderson, The United States Information Agency, (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1969), 25-27 14 Henderson, United, 28

Page 8 of 18

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download